The Promise of American Life eBook

The large corporations and the unions occupy in certain
respects a similar relation to the American political
system. Their advocates both believe in associated
action for themselves and in competition for their
adversaries. They both demand governmental protection
and recognition, but resent the notion of efficient
governmental regulation. They have both reached
their existing power, partly because of the weakness
of the state governments, to which they are legally
subject, and they both are opposed to any interference
by the Federal government—­except exclusively
on their own behalf. Yet they both have become
so very powerful that they are frequently too strong
for the state governments, and in different ways they
both traffic for their own benefit with the politicians,
who so often control those governments. Here,
of course, the parallelism ends and the divergence
begins. The corporations have apparently the
best of the situation because existing institutions
are more favorable to the interests of the corporations
than to the interests of the unionists; but on the
other hand, the unions have the immense advantage
of a great and increasing numerical strength.
They are beginning to use the suffrage to promote
a class interest, though how far they will travel
on this perilous path remains doubtful. In any
event, it is obvious that the development in this country
of two such powerful and unscrupulous and well-organized
special interests has created a condition which the
founders of the Republic never anticipated, and which
demands as a counterpoise a more effective body of
national opinion, and a more powerful organization
of the national interest.

V

GOVERNMENT BY LAWYERS

The corporation, the politician, and the union laborer
are all illustrations of the organization of men representing
fundamental interests for special purposes. The
specialization of American society has not, however,
stopped with its specialized organization. A similar
process has been taking place in the different professions,
arts, and trades; and of these much the most important
is the gradual transformation of the function of the
lawyer in the American political system. He no
longer either performs the same office or occupies
the same place in the public mind as he did before
the Civil War; and the nature and meaning of this
change cannot be understood without some preliminary
consideration of the important part which American
lawyers have played in American political history.

The importance of that part is both considerable and
peculiar—­as is the debt of gratitude which
the American people owe to American lawyers.
They founded the Republic, and they have always governed
it. Some few generals, and even one colonel,
have been elected to the Presidency of the United
States; and occasionally business men of one kind or
another have prevailed in local politics; but really